Tony Allen: The Beat of Afrobeat

  

The pulsating Yoruban derived rhythms that are so seductive and foundational in Afrobeat can be reduced to the work of one man, Tony Allen. Allen was self-taught, practicing his chops while working as an engineer at a local Lagos radio station when he was only 18. He caught his first break playing claves for the highlife band “The Cool Cats” headed by ‘Sir’ Victor Olaiya, the catalyst that brought him into the nucleus of the Nigerian music circuit where he later met his partner and bandleader from 1964-1979, Fela Kuti.

Allen, like Kuti, was a product of Yoruban culture, a student of a Western Colonial influence, and a child conceived in the tension between European colonialism and African independence, a crack in the earth that spawned the moment of creativity that conceived Afrobeat and allowed it to flourish during the most politically tense environs.

Another great similarity between Allen and Kuti, was their affection for American jazz. Allen studied the works of Max Roach, Ghanaian highlife drummer Kofi Ghanaba, and Art Blakey, particularly drawn to Max Roach’s use of the hi-hat—a necessary ingredient in jazz that had never been truly utilized in African music—and began incorporating it into his own signature sound. The result was a hybrid of a highly polyrhythmic understanding of drumming from African folk rhythms and popular West African genres like highlife and juju, married with a very authentically American jazz vernacular, and the growingly popular funk aesthetic by pioneers like James Brown.

When Kuti and Allen met again through their intermingling within the same Nigerian music circle, Kuti remarked “How come you are the only guy in Nigeria who plays like this—jazz and highlife?” A serendipitous pairing took place, as Kuti’s (highlife and jazz) band, the “Koola Lobitos” sought Allen as an original band member.

Kuti’s formidable trip to the United States set fuel to his political fire. Kuti was captivated by various fragments of Black Nationalism resulting from his relationship to Sandra Smith, a Black Panther, who first introduced him to the Black Power ideology through the works of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and others. He came back to Lagos applying his learnings into the African context. With a newfound affinity towards Pan Africanism and an urgent need to infuse it into his music, Kuti changed his band name to The African ’70 as a declaration of his alignment with a continental Liberation movement, and dissent against European imperialism. With a new political consciousness, he needed a sound that would speak it justice, and there arose Kuti as the voice, and Allen as the heartbeat. What Kuti said in words, Allen said through the majestic agility of his four limbs, bearing the ability to play all separate time signatures at once, often giving the illusion of multiple drummers playing simultaneously, a feat that only someone with a profound fluency in the spiritual language of rhythms can achieve.

Allen’s tenure with Kuti was a crucial one for the evolution of contemporary African music, and for drawing the bridge between two very disparate worlds musically, culturally, and politically. Allen served as Kuti’s musical director and was the only member of the Africa ’70 who had real creative autonomy. Despite a musical love affair at first, Allen eventually left Kuti and Africa ’70 in 1979 to further pursue his own music (he had recorded 3 solo albums while still Africa ’70 that Kuti supported). Allen was discontent with the unrelenting nature of Kuti towards his band members and was further disillusioned with Kuti’s rather undemocratic handlings of the band as he claimed the majority royalties and credit sought from their recordings. Nonetheless the 30 of Kuti’s albums that Allen recorded on are still remembered as the best from Kuti’s career, surely no coincidence to anyone who understands the impact of Allen to the Afrobeat genre at large. Despite his departure, Kuti would still attribute the joint creation of Afrobeat to both himself and to Allen.

Today—Allen, now in his 70s—is still known as one of the best drummers of all time. The title is attributed to not only his stellar musicianship, but also to his imaginative and forward thinking mind as an inventor of music, and as a successful bandleader.

Soon after his departure from the Africa ’70, Allen recorded a few albums in Nigeria before relocating first to London, and soon after to Paris, where he has lived for the past 20+ years. Allen’s exposure to a new environment allowed his work to rapidly flourish and evolve, expanding genres even further to include the influences of dub reggae, hip-hop, indie-rock, and electronica into a new genre that he coined as “Afrofunk”. His music is as politically relevant as ever, and his ear has matured to adapt to the nuances of a new world music landscape decades after his work with Kuti.

Allen’s musical anthology is unbelievably vast. After his work with Kuti, he assembled his own group called the Afro Messengers, ventured into his own creation of Afrofunk thereafter, he recorded in Lagos an album compiling the sounds and influences of intergenerational Lagos bred musicians in 2006 entitled Lagos No Shaking, and recently released a richly experimental album Inspiration Information with the Finnish musician Jimi Tenor in 2009. Perhaps one of his most provocative recordings since his tenure with Fela Kuti was with Damon Albarn (of the band Blur) in The Good, The Bad & the Queen, the debut album was critically acclaimed as one of the best rock recordings of 2007.

Allen’s musical tenacity has outlived many genres of music. He has had a career spanning over close to 5 decades, beyond various geographical borders, and many cultural movements. Allen continues to push the envelop while upholding what he believes to be the only real ingredient to Afrobeat—the rhythm. No matter what the project, the collaborators, the influences—so long as Allen holds down the rhythm—the end product will be celebrated as a continuation of the Afrobeat genre that he helped create almost 50 years ago.

Words by Boyuan Gao, published @revive-music.com

Tony Allen Announces New Album "Film of life"

By Gregory Adams 

Though the details are slim, it's been confirmed that prolific Afrobeat master drummer Tony Allen is set to issue his first solo effort in five years, Film of Life. While an exact due date has yet to be delivered, the album arrives sometime in October via Jazz Village.

 The LP marks his first proper solo venture since 2009's Secret Agent and has him teaming up again with longtime collaborator Damon Albarn. The album's first preview is "Go Back," a bubbling, bass-bouncing ballad was co-written with the Blur leader, who adds vocals and keyboard work to the track. According to press materials, the song is an "homage to the African refugees who ended up on the Italian island of Lampedusa."

You'll find a radio edit of the song, as well as a quick trailer teasing even more funky material, down below.

Prior to Film of Life, Albarn had appeared on Allen's 2002 LP HomeCooking, while the pair also played together in the Good, the Bad and the Queen, as well as Rocket Juice and the Moon, among other projects.

 

 

Tony Allen: An Autobiography Of The Master Drummer Of Afrobeat

First of all, drummers are going to love this book. With so few autobiographies of drummers in print, the publication of Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat is a cause for celebration. Co-author Michael Veal, author of Fela: The Life and Times of a Musical Icon and an accomplished musician himself, brings to life the rhythm and emotional timbre of Tony Allen's speaking voice and the complex story of this singular, Lagos-born-now-expatriate musician in a first-person narrative that takes the reader through a particularly transformative time in West Africa's post-colonial history. Most importantly, the book is a hell of a lot of fun to read, although Allen's first-hand accounts of his struggles with shamanistic bandleader and Nigeria's adopted "black president" Fela Anikulapo-Kuti will piss off any musician who has had to fight to get paid for playing a gig. And Allen's chillingly matter-of-fact recollection of the aftermath of the 1977 military raid on Fela's "Kalakuta Republic" compound, a raid that involved beatings, rape, mutilation, and nearly burning the compound to the ground, is truly terrifying.

Swinging Like Hell!

Afrobeat, a musical genre that Veal describes as Nigeria's "sonic signature," was born out of Allen's mastery of what he describes as "a fusion of beats and patterns," including highlife, rumba, mambo, waltz-time, traditional music from Nigeria and Ghana, American R&B and funk and, not surprisingly, jazz. On Allen's first U.S. tour with Fela's band Koola Lobitos, a band that would be renamed Africa 70 upon its return to Nigeria, Allen heard and met drummer Frank Butler, who played drums with such musicians as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. Allen cites the drumming techniques he learned directly from Butler as "the final piece of the puzzle that just made everything catch on fire."

And catch on fire it did. In his vivid description of Allen's drumming on the track "Fefe Naa Efe" from Fela and Africa 70's 1973 album Gentlemen, Veal writes: "Like the great jazz drummers, (Allen) keeps a steady conversation with the other instruments, particularly the soloists...Like a great boxer, he knows when to jab with his bass drum in order to punctuate a soloist's line, when to momentarily scatter and reconsolidate the flow with a hi-hat flourish, when to stoke the tension by laying deeply into the groove, and when to break and restart that tension by interjecting a crackling snare accent on the downbeat."

The book not only reveals Allen's methodical, years-long development of a new way to play the drum kit and propel Fela's compositional and political vision, it also shows Allen never stopped developing his technique post-Fela and continues to bring "the vitality of Yoruba artistic creativity" into new and innovative creative contexts. Allen negotiated the "world beat" market of the 1980s and 90s and experimented, like many African musicians recorded during those years, with heavily electronic and dub production techniques. In recent years, Allen has recorded and performed with American, French, and British musicians from genres that may seem light years away from his highlife roots. He saves some of his highest praise in the book for Damon Albarn, formerly the lead singer and bandleader of the wildly popular British band Blur and who has collaborated with Allen on several projects. "The way Damon came into my life," says Allen, "it was kind of like it had been written...not only did this guy make a big difference in my career, but we are also very good friends."

After many years of being underpaid and under appreciated for his innovations, Allen is currently enjoying a creative renaissance. One of the most moving passages in the book comes toward the end when Allen, now in his 70s, describes how busy he is "touring all over" Europe and what drives his creative work ethic. "I still want to play something impossible," Allen writes, "something that I never played before."

allaboutjazz.com

The Elder Statesman of Afrobeat Opens Up

Lately it seems that many of the world’s great percussionists are finally getting the attention and recognition they deserve. From the excellent new documentaries on Ginger Baker and Levon Helm, to Tony Allen’s recently released autobiography, Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat, it seems that music fans are finally beginning to wake up and realize how crucial a great drummer is to a great band. Cream wouldn’t have been Cream without Baker. The Band would not have been the Band without Helm.

And, as was plain to see upon his departure from Fela Kuti & the Africa 70 in 1978, Allen was essential to Fela’s iconic sound. Kuti made several great records following Allen’s absence, but these records noticeably lacked the virtuosic, yet understated touch of the master drummer of Afrobeat. In Allen’s new autobiography, co-written with Michael E. Veal (author of Fela: The Life and Times of a Musical Icon) we get a glimpse into the life and times of the man behind the kit, as well as fascinating insights into the tumultuous rise of Fela Kuti & the Afrika 70 to superstardom.

Aside from Veal’s adulatory introduction, Tony Allen is informal, highly conversational, and for the most part engaging, though Allen’s frequent digressions are occasionally confusing for the reader trying to piece together the larger picture. One thing is clear, however; from humble beginnings in Lagos with uncommonly supportive parents, to his triumphs with Kuti in the studio and on the international stage, to later life in France as the elder statesman of Afrobeat, Allen has always carried himself with a quiet confidence far more valuable than any lavish praise from music fans. It may have taken the world several decades to properly acknowledge his contributions to music, but Allen doesn’t seem to need anyone’s recognition, in stark contrast to Kuti, for whom the quest for respect and recognition seemed to be almost compulsive.

There are several entertaining passages that reveal the tension between Allen and Kuti during Afrika 70’s ascendancy to superstardom. One particularly memorable passage details the bandmates’ quarrels over groupies:

... The truth is all this bullshit happened because of the girls around. It was just a question of me screwing one girl that was his favorite. But nothing stopped him from screwing that girl also, as she lived in his house. So who was the master—was [Fela] not? If the girl followed me, it was because she wanted to… Why was [Fela] making a problem with me?... He gave it to me properly in front of that girl so that she would know that he was the boss. Which everybody already knew, anyway.

There is an air of slight bitterness surrounding Allen’s description of Kuti throughout the autobiography, and who can blame him: Kuti’s megalomaniacal genius and shady business ethics would have made any associated musician frustrated. Still, the immense strength of Kuti’s personality could not suppress Allen’s, and it becomes evident in Tony Allen that Allen has always been his own “boss”.

Any fan of Afrobeat knows the incredible debt the genre owes to Allen, but some fail to recognize the drummer’s influence in rock, pop, and beyond: Paul McCartney, 2uestlove, and Brian Eno are just a few contemporary titans who sing Allen’s praises, and recognize his innovation behind the kit. In the ‘50s Nigeria drum kits were rare; even rarer were Nigerians who knew what to do with them. Aside from a few brief mentorships with his new instrument in his adolescence, Allen has been teaching himself percussion for the better part of 70 years, never ceasing to develop and refine his style even as his ability has become known and celebrated throughout the world. Truly, this is the mark of a genius; that rare artist who never ceases exploring, refining, and challenging himself to take daring and uncomfortable risks with his craft.

It’s challenging to select only one performance to exemplify Allen’s talent; even limiting myself to five or ten choices seems to be doing the drummer an injustice. The truth is that Allen has been remarkably, consistently great for nearly half a century. I can still recall the first time I heard him play: as a lover of rhythm and percussionist myself, I was forever changed when I first experienced the force of Allen’s artistry in the 1977 classic, “Opposite People”. This is music that is nearly impossible to listen to and remain sitting still; Allen basically forces you to move.

After decades of being underpaid and underappreciated for his contributions with Kuti and beyond, it’s satisfying to see Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat in print. Drummers, fans of African music, and lovers of music more generally will find a lot to love in this book.

 popmatters.com

 ---


“This is not a slice of dry academia, what we get in this incredibly fruitful collaboration is 160 pages of rich revealing narrative that is so engrossing that I missed my stop on the tube. . . . Basically, I couldn’t put the book down and it had me sifting through the records to provide a soundtrack to the narrative.” - Paul Brad, Ancient to Future
 

“This master drummer’s account is enriched by unstinting critical appraisal, whether evaluating Fela’s most loved recordings or his own subsequent solo efforts. Tony Allen, ever restless, retains the enthusiasm of an absolute beginner, tempered with a survivor’s wisdom. His life obviously a work in progress, one anticipates music yet to come and the stories that surface in its wake.” - Richard Henderson, The Wire 

“This is a much needed, truly fascinating book… Allen spins the tale of his life, and of the evolution of one of the great popular musical styles of the 20th century, like the great storyteller he is. It’s a narrative filled with tasty anecdotes and twinkling details, which just add to its momentum. You can almost see the wry smile on his face as he challenges you to make up his own mind… Allen’s totally absorbing narrative was edited and shaped by Michael E. Veal… In his introduction he treats us to an unbeatably succinct, lucidly accurate contextual analysis of Allen as a ‘Yoruba modernist’. He also gets to grips with how the Allen technique works… This is highly readable and highly recommended.” - Max Reinhardt, Songlines

“There’s a sentence in the introduction where Veal, a Yale professor, uses the phrase ‘indigenization of jazz drumming’, but don’t let that put you off. The academic is present primarily to transcribe and edit, while Allen reflects on 50 years at the coalface… One of the great sidemen, Allen here cuts mercilessly through the bullshit.” - David Hutcheon, Mojo

"Tony Allen brings the music scene in Lagos, Nigeria, to life, the dynamic and spiritual music that the world came to know as Afrobeat. He shows what it means to be a musician and a master drummer, and he shares the stories not only of Fela Kuti but also of many other important musicians."—Randy Weston, author of African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston

"Tony Allen is an engaging person, an important musical figure during a dynamic era in African music, and a major contributor in the creation of an influential musical genre. He and Fela Kuti emerge in his portrayal as dedicated musical seekers who continually struggled to develop and protect their art. Allen's memoir is an exceptional achievement that will make readers wish to have been there with them to live it all again."—John M. Chernoff, percussionist, ethnographer, author

AfrobeatMusic.net

“Allen bring us his inspirational biography. Written together with Michael Veal, author of Fela Kuti’s biography, this is the most accessible Afrobeat book of them all. . . . Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in the history of West-African popular music.”

Popmatters - Zachary Stockill

“After decades of being underpaid and underappreciated for his contributions with Kuti and beyond, it’s satisfying to see Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat in print. Drummers, fans of African music, and lovers of music more generally will find a lot to love in this book.”

Jazzwise - Jane Cornwel

“Anyone who knows their Afrobeat will tell you how pivotal the kit drummer Tony Allen was to the genre’s development. Indeed, as . . . Michael Veal points out in this important, deftly crafted book, the pairing of Allen and the late great Fela Anikulapo Kuti could be likened to partnerships between such jazz supernovas as Coltrane and Elvin Jones; Miles and Philly Joe Jones; Ornette and Billy Higgins.”

barnesandnoble.com

When Tony Allen Met Fela Kuti ...

Originally published @redbullmusicacademy.com


"Without Tony Allen, there would be no afrobeat," Fela Kuti once remarked of his longstanding collaborator. The Lagos-born drummer introduced a style of playing to the African highlife scene which he modeled after American jazz pioneers like Art Blakey, creating an explosive concoction that fused the best of both worlds. In his 2007 Red Bull Music Academy lecture in Toronto, Tony details his initial encounters with Fela Kuti, whose groundbreaking band he would be an integral part of between 1968 and 1979. 

by Tony Allen

When the Blue Note records started coming into the country, I started listening to Art Blakey and I was like: "Wow! This one is different. It's not the same style like Gene Krupa. They were playing jazz, but it's not the same style. I prefer this one." I started to go towards this sound of Art Blakey, Jo Jones. Because Art Blakey doesn't sound like one drummer, he sounds like more than one. So on the record I was imagining, "Is this one guy playing those drums?" I said: "Maybe someone is playing the cymbals or the hi-hats for him?" If he was able to do that, then that means I have to go for that. He was my idol but I didn't know how I was going to be myself.

One thing I observed when I was playing was that most of the drummers right in front of me-- the so-called good drummers-- have at least four things there: you have two pedals, one for the hi-hat, one for the bass drum. I watched these drummers and they never play the hi-hat. It's closed and they play on top of it. I wasn't convinced. There must be another way of playing these fucking hi-hats, man. I was not convinced at all. Something was wrong here, it wasn't complete. The hi-hats weren't played. So I'm like: "How am I going to create with it?" So one day, you know the Downbeat magazine? It's a monthly magazine, I used to buy it every month. I bought it that month and in the middle of the page I saw just two pages teaching hi-hats. Ah! I saw that that was it! And I saw that what this guy wrote there I hadn't seen anybody doing it. So I say: "OK, that's the challenge for me now." I went back to my drums everyday, every afternoon. I was trying to fuse the playing of these hi-hats into how I was playing before, which wasn't being done. That took some time. When I discovered that and I was able to do that and say: "Yes, I'm manoeuvring fine now, no disturbance," then I became the drummer in town who all the other drummers came to watch.

They would say: "Tony! What the fuck are you doing? What are you doing, man?" "I'm playing." It's the same music that they were playing before. But all of a sudden, they start to hear something that wasn't there before. And so they thought I was crazy. It's OK for me, I got it. Even before I met Fela.

I met Fela when he came back from his studies. He was working as a broadcaster for the Nigerian Radio Corporation, and his program was to play old jazz records on Friday night. Being a musician, he really wanted to play jazz when he arrived in the country. Instead of him presenting the records, he decided to form a band that would play the records, interpret the records and make it live. They would go in and pre-record everything for the quarter. 13 programs, 30 minutes each, in like three days.

So Fela came, and I was playing in a steady band, you know? Fela was trying to do his jazz thing and he tried three different drummers and the funny thing was he tried these guys in front of me. I had worked with them before and they were good drummers. When Fela played with them he was like: "No, shit! There's no drummer in this country, man. You guys can't play drums." So the bass player was like: "No, no, no. You haven't checked this one person yet." And he said: "Who else? I've checked all the so-called best ones." This bass player said: "His name is Tony Allen, and we play together in the same band." And he checked me out.

He invited me to his house and then we went to the radio station where the instruments were set. He says: "Hey Tony, can you play 12-bar blues?" I say: "Yes, I can play 12-bar blues." He says: "Can you take solos? And share solos four four?" And I say: "Yes." So he takes his trumpet and I'm on the drums and he counts and we were away, 12-bar blues. After the third cycle he was like: "Stop, stop, stop!" So I stopped, maybe there's a problem. He said: "No." And then he looked at me and then looked at the guy in the control room and he said: "Hey! Are you listening to what I'm listening to?" The guy says: "Yes, yes." So he said: "Did you observe the first cycle that this guy rolled in? And then the second cycle and roll in again, and then third cycle roll in again? Have you ever seen that with the others?" And he says: "No." So: "Ahhh," says Fela, "OK, let's go. We're going to share solos now." He took his first four and I took my first four, and then he went for his second four, and I took my second four, and he said: "Stop! Where did you learn your drumming? Did you study in the States? Did you study in England?" And I said: "No, I did everything here." And he says: "It's incredible. The style you play one wouldn't even need a percussionist." So the first year like this I had my band playing steadily, and that's when I had my leave.

For Fela it was strictly jazz. I was doing these two things at the same time, until one year later, he decided he wanted to join the cycle of the others too. Living on the local music scene, the highlife, they lived like kings. So Fela says he wants to front the highlife band, but not play it the same way. I tell him: "Yes, it's possible, you can do anything you want to do." At that time, I was working. One night they drove down to the club and came in with this manager assistant-- they work together on the radio-- and he says to me: "Tony! Fela says you should resign from your job here." I say: "What?" "You should resign 'cause they are forming a new band." "Forming a new band? I don't even know where we are going yet?" So I was going to leave my steady job to uncertainty again. But I was able to be convinced because I thought, "Maybe I have to sacrifice something for something else?" That means that I might have to resign. So I said: "Wait, just give me 'til the end of the month, end my salary here and I tender them my resignation." They thought I was joking, but I knew that with him was what I really wanted to achieve as a drummer: be extraordinary which ever way. And I think it's only him that would let me reach that level. I had to gamble. So I took my salary and resigned. The manager of that club begged me to stay: "Do you want more money? I'll give you more money." "No, not a question of money now, it's a question of future. I'm tired of the band already because it's stagnant. I don't see how I can improve in this band." I told him I just want to be a musician. So I begged him, I said: "Please, sir, forgive me that I resigned." He said: "But you do know what you're doing?", and I say: "I know, but I just have to go and try it." And with Fela, I knew I was meeting a genius. Someone that I haven't seen anything like it before. So I bend my neck.

Tony Allen: An Autobiography Of The Master Drummer Of Afrobeat!

First of all, drummers are going to love this book. With so few autobiographies of drummers in print, the publication of Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat is a cause for celebration. Co-author Michael Veal, author of Fela: The Life and Times of a Musical Icon and an accomplished musician himself, brings to life the rhythm and emotional timbre of Tony Allen's speaking voice and the complex story of this singular, Lagos-born-now-expatriate musician in a first-person narrative that takes the reader through a particularly transformative time in West Africa's post-colonial history. Most importantly, the book is a hell of a lot of fun to read, although Allen's first-hand accounts of his struggles with shamanistic bandleader and Nigeria's adopted "black president" Fela Anikulapo-Kuti will piss off any musician who has had to fight to get paid for playing a gig. And Allen's chillingly matter-of-fact recollection of the aftermath of the 1977 military raid on Fela's "Kalakuta Republic" compound, a raid that involved beatings, rape, mutilation, and nearly burning the compound to the ground, is truly terrifying.

 Swinging Like Hell!

Afrobeat, a musical genre that Veal describes as Nigeria's "sonic signature," was born out of Allen's mastery of what he describes as "a fusion of beats and patterns," including highlife, rumba, mambo, waltz-time, traditional music from Nigeria and Ghana, American R&B and funk and, not surprisingly, jazz. On Allen's first U.S. tour with Fela's band Koola Lobitos, a band that would be renamed Africa 70 upon its return to Nigeria, Allen heard and met drummer Frank Butler, who played drums with such musicians as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. Allen cites the drumming techniques he learned directly from Butler as "the final piece of the puzzle that just made everything catch on fire."

And catch on fire it did. In his vivid description of Allen's drumming on the track "Fefe Naa Efe" from Fela and Africa 70's 1973 album Gentlemen, Veal writes: "Like the great jazz drummers, (Allen) keeps a steady conversation with the other instruments, particularly the soloists...Like a great boxer, he knows when to jab with his bass drum in order to punctuate a soloist's line, when to momentarily scatter and reconsolidate the flow with a hi-hat flourish, when to stoke the tension by laying deeply into the groove, and when to break and restart that tension by interjecting a crackling snare accent on the downbeat."

The book not only reveals Allen's methodical, years-long development of a new way to play the drum kit and propel Fela's compositional and political vision, it also shows Allen never stopped developing his technique post-Fela and continues to bring "the vitality of Yoruba artistic creativity" into new and innovative creative contexts. Allen negotiated the "world beat" market of the 1980s and 90s and experimented, like many African musicians recorded during those years, with heavily electronic and dub production techniques. In recent years, Allen has recorded and performed with American, French, and British musicians from genres that may seem light years away from his highlife roots. He saves some of his highest praise in the book for Damon Albarn, formerly the lead singer and bandleader of the wildly popular British band Blur and who has collaborated with Allen on several projects. "The way Damon came into my life," says Allen, "it was kind of like it had been written...not only did this guy make a big difference in my career, but we are also very good friends."

After many years of being underpaid and under appreciated for his innovations, Allen is currently enjoying a creative renaissance. One of the most moving passages in the book comes toward the end when Allen, now in his 70s, describes how busy he is "touring all over" Europe and what drives his creative work ethic. "I still want to play something impossible," Allen writes, "something that I never played before."

allaboutjazz.com

'I still want to play something impossible': Meet Afrobeat king Tony Allen

 The first thing he asked was 'Are you the one who said that you are the best drummer in this country?' I laughed and told him, 'I never said so.' He asked me if I could play jazz and I said yes. He asked me if I could take solos and I said yes again."

That's how Tony Allen details his first ever encounter with Fela Kuti back in the mid-1960s, a meeting that was destined to trigger an explosive sonic collaboration that a few years later gave birth to the blistering Afrobeat sound -- arguably the most exciting period in the history of popular West African music.

This anecdote, and many more others, are featured in the newly released autobiography of Allen, the iconic Nigerian drummer who's left an indelible stamp on the history of world music with his distinctive style and pioneering grooves. Brian Eno has hailed Allen as the "greatest living drummer."

Co-written with Michael E. Veal, "Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat" follows Allen's life from his early days growing up in the heart of Lagos Island, though his struggling first steps as a badly paid freelance musician, the meeting with Fela and the heights of their "Africa 70" band, to his departure from the group and his relocation to Paris in the mid 1980s.

Master drummer

Born in Lagos in 1940 to a Nigerian father and a Ghanaian mother, Allen was the oldest of six children. His first gig came in late 1950s when he started playing clefs in a highlife group called "The Cool Cats," before taking over the band's rhythm section.

From then on, Allen went on to hone his self-taught drumming skills by dipping into different styles as a member of several other Lagos bands -- including "Agu Norris and the Heatwaves," "The Paradise Melody Angels" and "The Western Toppers."

In 1964, Allen met up with Fela and his career took a different, more exciting path. Over the next 15 years, Allen would be the rhythmic engine for the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and political rights activist, first for the highlife-jazz outfit "Koola Lobitos" and then for the seminal "Africa 70" group.

It was after the band returned from a 10-month stay in the United States in 1969 that Allen created the potent drumming concept of Afrobeat, fusing the different beats and patterns he'd heard while growing up with the new techniques he'd mastered as a professional drummer -- everything from highlife and traditional Nigerian music to Western jazz, funk and R&B.

"I was looking for something," Allen says, from Paris, where he is currently based. "I wanted to be myself," he adds. "I played like everybody already but there was no point in continuing doing that because I'd be bored completely."

Allen, the only member of Fela's band allowed to compose his own parts, could famously drum in a different time signature with each of his four limbs. Driven by his fluid and steady drumming, Africa 70 went on to record a string of highly successful and politically charged albums, which turned Fela into a huge musical and countercultural icon in Nigeria and abroad.

But it was onstage where the full force of Afrobeat's intoxicating sound and the talents of Fela and Allen really shone through.

"With me and Fela, it's a question of telepathy," Allen says of the musical closeness he enjoyed with "Africa 70's" firebrand leader.

"That is why I was able to stick around this guy for 15 years -- you know, I never did that with anyone before; the maximum time I stayed in a band was one year," adds Allen.

"Since I met him I knew that this guy had something, this is the type of challenge I needed ... I just believed that I am meeting a genius and it's great to work with a genius."

Life after Fela

This deep appreciation of Fela's musical brilliance oozes through the pages of Allen's autobiography. But the narrative is also filled with wrangles over payments and recognition. In the end, Allen says it was not the ongoing pay disputes but the increasingly volatile situation around Fela's political activism that led to Allen leaving the group in 1978 -- events like the army attack on Fela's compound in 1977.

"The only thing that happened was that it became a package of madness," Allen says. "I stood it for a while too, I was inside it -- I had been arrested, I had to submit myself because he is like my brother."

Allen's departure left a big void in the heart of the Afrobeat sound. Fela, who replaced his polyrhythmic sideman with four drummers during live performances, once said that "there would be no Afrobeat without Tony Allen." The two remained friends until Fela's death in 1997.

After leaving "Africa 70," Allen went on to form his own bands in Nigeria before relocating to Paris in 1985.

Since then, he's released several well-received albums. A musician committed to innovation, he's joined forces with an eclectic roster of both African and international musicians over the years-- including Damon Albarn, King Sunny Ade and Jimi Tenor.

Today, at the age of 73, Allen still remains as active as ever.

"I don't see the end of exploring," says Allen, who is currently working on a new album. It's a sentiment echoed in his final remarks in the book.

"I still challenge myself every time with my playing," Allen writes. "I still want to play something impossible, something I never played before."

cnn.com 

 

Tony Allen - Lagos No Shaking

Reviews

More than any other member of Fela Anikulapo Kuti's early bands, drummer Tony Allen can be said to have co-invented Afrobeat. Kuti provided the funk/jazz/Yoruba folk music themes and arrangements—plus the trademark insurrectionary lyrics and, crucially in the face of vicious and ongoing state attempts to silence the band, the leadership. (The buck sure enough stopped with Kuti, a man of extraordinary integrity and courage.) Allen provided that unique Afrobeat rhythm—a majestic, straight to your feet, loose-limbed but heavy shuffle.

allaboutjazz.com

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The Afrobeat sound owns its very existence to its creators Fela Kuti and Tony Allen. Regarded as one of the most distinctive and in-demand drummers on the planet, Tony Allen is responsible for Afrobeat’s propulsive and melodic rhythms.

Since leaving Fela Kuti in the late ‘70s, Tony Allen has created a distinctive name for himself acting as bandleader, composer, and husky, rapping vocalist on a string of groundbreaking albums by pushing at the boundaries of African, rock, jazz and hip hop music, recording with the likes of Manu Dibango, King Sunny Ade and Blur/Gorillaz leader Damon Albarn. Now with his brand new album for Honest Jons, Tony Allen returns to Lagos, one of the world’s steamiest capitals of rhythm for his most powerful, personal, and all-African album to date, Lagos No Shaking.

Drawing on Lagos’ diverse musical traditions, Lagos No Shaking (slang for “Lagos is doing OK”) brings together several generations of musical talents into a bristling brew of unsurpassed rhythm. Collaborators include extraordinary 76 year-old vocalist Fatai Rolling Dollar, legendary saxophonists Baba Ani and Show Boy from Fela Kuti’s Afrika 70 and Egypt 80 line-ups, and vibrant soul woman Yinka Davies. Lagos No Shaking is a love letter from Africa’s city of rhythm featuring some its finest performers.

astralwerks.com

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Tony Allen played drums in Fela Kuti's bands between 1964 and 1978, contributing a vital element to Afrobeat's evolution. And while he's been active as a bandleader for nearly three decades, Allen's presence has intensified during the last five years.

This set was recorded in Lagos, and manages to harness the rugged grit of that difficult city, whilst simultaneously presenting Allen's signature sound with a slick production sheen. Intense horn riffs, choppy guitar, call-and-response vocals: all of these elements are interwoven with Allen's detailed, cyclic beats, his taut tripping lending an elastic tension to the dancefloor.

The tunes tend to insinuate themselves after several airings. Young, soulful Yinka Davies powers abrasively through "Morose" and "Losun", two songs that boast almost annoyingly catchy choruses, then elderly groaner Fatai Rolling Dollar imparts a completely traditional juju feel to "Awa Na Re", prompting Allen to layer up some heavy hardcore percussion patterns.

BBC

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Tony Allen is the co-creator of Afrobeat, and one of the most distinctive and in-demand drummers on the planet. No one swings like this Nigerian rhythm man — with that amazing, loose-limbed, poly-rhythmic technique that has powered some of the funkiest and most challenging dance music ever created. And Lagos No Shaking is his most powerful and personal album to date: a return to core values; a testament to the fact that afrobeat is best served straight — hot, hard and percussion-heavy.

Tony Allen grew up surrounded by rhythm: the local palm-wine and juju sounds loved by his motor mechanic father, and the pan-African, big-band highlife then sweeping the clubs of Africa — exemplified by the great Ghanaian bandleader E. T. Mensah. The young Tony developed an obsession with drums. But opportunities to get near a kit were few and far between in 1950s Lagos. He made his professional debut at the age of 18, while working as a radio technician, playing claves with Sir Victor Olaiya and his Cool Cats. When the regular drummer left, Tony was handed the sticks. He went on honing his technique with Negu Morris And The Heatwaves, the Nigerian Messengers and the Western Toppers Highlife Band. His role models were Art Blakey and the Ghanaian drummer Koffi Ghanaba, aka Guy Warren.

Then, in 1964, Tony was invited to audition for a band called Koola Lobitos, led by a young Nigerian — just returned from music studies in London — named Fela Kuti. Fela’s influence on the young drummer was incalculable. But then so was Tony’s on Fela. Here was exactly the musician Fela had been looking for: capable of fusing jazz and highlife sensibilities and sounding, as Kuti put it, ‘like five drummers at once’. If Fela was afrobeat’s mind and mouth, Tony Allen was its arms and legs, his webs of cascading off-beats endlessly powering the music forward.

Allen split with Fela in 1978 — citing the bandleader’s lack of care for his musicians. He relocated to Paris in 1980, involving himself in an amazing diversity of collaborative projects over the succeeding decades.

Now, finally, Tony Allen himself is back. Recorded over ten all-night sessions in the Ikeja district, Lagos No Shaking is the first Lagos-recorded album on which Tony has had complete artistic freedom. But it is also a truly collaborative work, which draws on the city’s diverse musical traditions and brings together several generations of Lagosian musical talent.

Key among the veterans is the extraordinary 76 year-old palm-wine singer Fatai Rolling Dollar, who adds his throatily commanding tones and throbbing agidigbo thumb piano to four tracks. From Fela’s classic Afrika 70 and Egypt 80 line-ups, saxmen Baba Ani and Show Boy add that essential deep-blasting horn undertow. There are the r and b sensibilities of Yinka Davies and Omololu Ogunleye; and Muritala Adisa adds touches of ewe, a form of spoken praise-singing rooted in ancent Yoruba tradition.

But the key element is, of course, Tony Allen’s powerful, yet magnicently relaxed drumming, which keeps everything in perpetual rocking motion, tempering the hard funk edges of classic afrobeat with earthier Lagosian flavours. Indeed, while the album’s observations on Lagos life are aptly tough and sardonic, this is a warmer, more down-home, perhaps a more humane album than anything Fela ever produced.

Lagos No Shaking means Lagos is on form, Lagos is solid; and on Awa Na Re Fatai Rolling Dollar sings the praises of a city that has been much reviled – not least by its own inhabitants. ‘Lagos is a fantastic place,’ he sings over rolling traditional percussion. ‘In Lagos you can get whatever you want.’ Ise Nla maintains the mood with talk of a ‘dream ticket, a fantastic job’. In Moyege Lolu thanks his parents for good upbringing and the freedom he feels when he stays with them. Ole ('Lazy') and Ogogoro — an ode to the local gin, complete with drunken marital discussion — warn of the dangers of hanging around in bars. Morose bemoans the grim expressions of the people of Lagos; and Losun alleges and lambasts the inexpressiveness of Nigerian men with true afrobeat frankness.

Lagos No Shaking is a spectacular homecoming for Tony Allen, an acerbic, unflinching love letter to the city that gave him life in rhythm.

honestjons.com

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Tony Allen, inventor of the Afro-beat rythmn and drums of such hi regard brought out a bit of a classice with Lagos No Shaking before he went off collborating with Honest Jon himself, Damon Albarn.

In fact old Honest Jon’s got serious on the 12” releases as ‘Moyege’, ‘One Tree’, ‘Kilode’ and ‘Ole’ and came out. The album starts with the hi-tempo ‘Ise Nla’ and keeps the funk going right up toh the end with arguably the best of the set, the stripped down instrumental ‘Gbedu’ that’s busy and simple all at the same time.

For once the contents are a good as the cover and it doesn’t really matter how old this album is, it’ll always sound good. And just to emphasis the point, don’t forget Vampi’s CD set Afro Disco Beat (that came out at the time of Tony being on African Soul Rebel Tour earlier in the year) that includes his first four solo album’s Jealousy (1975), Progress (1976), No Accomodation For Lagos (1978) and No Discrimination (1979). Even though Allen is now in his seventies, he can still caputure the imagination of the Beat Generation and long may he continue.

flyglobalmusic.com

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It's now nine years since the passing of Nigerian political firebrand, bandleader and Afrobeat creator Fela Kuti. His music drew on funk and jazz as well as the home-grown highlife sounds - it was intense, impassioned, focused and danceable.

Two of his sons, Femi and Seun, keep the torch burning - Femi with a sharp, radio-friendly Fela-lite, while the younger Seun's music sticks closer to dad's blueprint, and is no less exciting for it. It did him no harm on his 2004 UK visit, having percussionist Tony Allen on board.

Ah yes, Allen was Fela's chief musical collaborator through most of his very productive period with Africa 70, having first played with him in the mid 60s. Amongst other things, he was and is a drummer so ferociously rhythmic that when he finally left Fela's employ it took four men to replace him.

An in-demand session player with African greats like Manu Dibango, Sunny Ade and Ray Lema, and with eclectic credits elsewhere on the work of Roy Ayers, Spearhead and Susheela Raman, Allen's own solo albums have been only an occasional treat in the past couple of decades since he delivered Progress, his debut as a leader, in 1975 - though much of his repertoire has happily turned up on CD in recent times.

Honest Jon's Records is fast becoming a haven for treasures left-field, lost and overlooked, and has given Allen his head and let him do Lagos No Shaking. Recorded over 10 nights in the Nigerian capital, the record effortlessly proves that this older generation can still show the Afrobeat way. As might be expected, the album is rhythmically faultless, the percussion being allowed to breathe in its own space, while the horns are reassuringly rude, and the guitar figures conjure a trance for a dance, if you will.

Lagos No Shaking plays host to a handful of guest vocalists, including highlife maestro Fatai Rolling Dollar and diva Yinka Davies, and while that might present the idea of a Buena Vista-esque rolling revue, it's actually the record's only real failing, with some performances - largely those in English - like Morose and Losun, found wanting in execution. Where Fela made a virtue of communicating in English pidgin-style, these just strike a wrong chord.

But that minor grump aside, Tony Allen's return is all anyone could wish for. It's hot and heavy, exhausting in the best possible way, and as funky as hell. It's literally in a league of its own as the dance record of the year so far. A legend still going where others could only hope to tread.

musicomh.com




Tracklist

1. Ise Nla
2. Morose
3. Aye Le
4. Losun
5. One Tree
6. Ole
7. Kilode
8. Awa Na Re
9. Ogogoro
10. Moyege
11. Gbedu